1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a communication apparatus which implements communication over an Internet phone or an ordinary telephone, facsimile communication or the like via a LAN and Internet.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, Internet communications are promptly becoming popular worldwide. Multiple machines which utilizes Internet, such as an Internet phone and Internet facsimile, have been proposed. Of those machines, the xe2x80x9cInternet phonexe2x80x9d is receiving particular attention due to its ability to significantly reduce the communication cost.
There are two modes in using this Internet phone: the first one establishes dial-up connection via an Internet service provider and the second one directly connects Internet phones to each other over a LAN.
With regard to the first mode, users who want to communicate with each other over Internet phones need to establish IP connection to each other, so that so-called meet rendezvous server should be provided on the Internet. As described in Unexamined Japanese Patent Publication No. HEI 10-210174, for example, a rendezvous server is provided with a correlation table on telephone numbers and nearest Internet service providers. A user who is calling notifies a communication request and the IP address of the caller to a user on the receiving side (hereinafter, referred to as calllee) over a public switched telephone network. The caller and the callee establish spontaneous connection and communicate with each other via the rendezvous server.
In the communication mode in which dial-up connection is made via an Internet service provider, the Internet service provider makes PPP connection of a terminal to the Internet only when connection is requested. Therefore, the ordinary Internet communication protocol cannot allow direct call to an individual to whom dial-up connection is to be established via an Internet service provider. Thus, most of proposals on Internet phones provide ways to establish mutual connection via the Internet.
For the second mode, which directly connects Internet phones to each other over a LAN, a communication scheme has been put to a practical use which uses a personal computer that is capable of coding and decoding speeches and is connected to a microphone and a loudspeaker or the like.
Communication over Internet phones using this method however requires a special device and various settings for a terminal that connects to a LAN. There have not been proposed various solutions to this shortcoming unlike in the above-described case of dial-up connection.
There is a great need to adaptively connect multiple telephones and facsimile machines, which are present within a company, a school or the like, to the Internet for their effective usage. But, no schemes to easily accomplish such a use have not been proposed yet.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a communication apparatus which can ensure effective use of various terminals, mutually connected over a LAN, on the Internet by connecting telephones, facsimile machines, etc. to the LAN, the Internet, a public switched telephone network or the like as needed.
A communication apparatus according to this invention comprises a terminal interface for connecting to a communication terminal, a interface for connecting to a public switched telephone network, and a LAN interface for connecting to an Internet. This communication apparatus transmits data via either the public switched telephone network interface or the LAN interface as a result of analyzing a transmission request from the communication terminal. The communication apparatus is also designed to transmit data, received via either the public switched telephone network interface or the LAN interface, to another communication terminal.
Further, the communication apparatus of this invention is so designed as to analyze received data to acquire a transmission destination or a reception terminal, and so execute a gateway process as needed, at the time of data transmission or data reception.